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There are cases in which we intuitively want to say that individuals have a moral duty to act jointly with others in order to prevent a serious harm, even though they are individually unable to discharge this duty. I argue that existing attempts to understand these duties as duties of the group, as irreducible joint duties, or as duties to collectivise fail. I offer an alternative account according to which individuals in the relevant cases are jointly obligated to prevent the harm in question. However, there is no such thing as a joint obligation, only a state of being jointly obligated. This state is reducible to two types of individual duties. First, each agent has a duty with a conditional content of the form O [ → ]. Due to its conditional content, the assignment of such a duty is compatible with "ought" implies "can." Second, each individual has as an unconditional duty to show readiness for the joint action. By expressing an intention of the form "I will if you will," an agent satisfies the antecedent of the other agents' conditional duties. The respective agents do not only provide each other with a means to perform a joint action, they are also linked through their mutual power to change each other's normative situation by turning each other's conditional duties into unconditional duties. In this way, the interlocking tokens of individual duties create a state of being jointly obligated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to some collectivists, purposive groups that lack decision-making procedures such as riot mobs, friends walking together, or the pro-life lobby can be morally responsible and have moral duties. I focus on plural subject- and we-mode-collectivism. I argue that purposive groups do not qualify as duty-bearers even if they qualify as agents on either view. To qualify as a duty-bearer, an agent must be morally competent. I develop the Update Argument. An agent is morally competent only if the agent has sufficient positive and negative control over updating their goal-seeking states. Positive control involves the general ability to update one's goal-seeking states, whereas negative control involves the absence of other agents with the capacity to arbitrarily interfere with updating one's goal-seeking states. I argue that even if purposive groups qualify as plural subjects or we-mode group agents, these groups necessarily lack negative control over updating their goal-seeking states. This creates a cut-off point for groups as duty-bearers: Organized groups may qualify as duty-bearers, whereas purposive groups cannot qualify as duty-bearers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a response to the critial comments by Anne Schwenkenbecher, Olle Blomberg, Bill Wringe and Gunnar Björnsson.

Stephanie Collins’ Group Duties offers interesting new arguments and brings together numerous interconnected issues that have hitherto been treated separately. My critical commentary focuses on two particularly original and central claims of the book: (1) Only groups that are united under a group-level decision-making procedure can bear duties. (2) Attributions of duties to other groups should be understood as attributions of “coordination duties” to each member of the group, duties to either take steps responsive to the others with a view to the group’s doing what is said to be its duty or to express willingness to do so. In support of the first claim, Collins argues that only groups that can make decisions can bear duties, and that the ability to make decisions requires the relevant sort of decision-making procedure. I suggest that both parts of this argument remain in need of further support. I furthermore argue that Collins’ account of coordination duties gets certain kinds of cases wrong, and suggest that attributions of duties to groups without decision-making procedures are more plausibly understood as attributing shared duties grounded in demands on the group’s members to care about the values at stake.

This paper provides an overview of Group Duties: Their Existence and Their Implications for Individuals.

This is a response to the critial comments by Anne Schwenkenbecher, Olle Blomberg, Bill Wringe and Gunnar Björnsson.

Stephanie Collins’ Group Duties offers interesting new arguments and brings together numerous interconnected issues that have hitherto been treated separately. My critical commentary focuses on two particularly original and central claims of the book: (1) Only groups that are united under a group-level decision-making procedure can bear duties. (2) Attributions of duties to other groups should be understood as attributions of “coordination duties” to each member of the group, duties to either take steps responsive to the others with a view to the group’s doing what is said to be its duty or to express willingness to do so. In support of the first claim, Collins argues that only groups that can make decisions can bear duties, and that the ability to make decisions requires the relevant sort of decision-making procedure. I suggest that both parts of this argument remain in need of further support. I furthermore argue that Collins’ account of coordination duties gets certain kinds of cases wrong, and suggest that attributions of duties to groups without decision-making procedures are more plausibly understood as attributing shared duties grounded in demands on the group’s members to care about the values at stake.

This paper provides an overview of Group Duties: Their Existence and Their Implications for Individuals.